“Two people shot to death, and three injured in a traffic accident when all the cars tried to get outta there, bunch of people damn near trampled to death when they realized they were being shot at.” She topped off his coffee. “Musta been bedlam.”
“New York,” Repetto said sadly.
“Whatza difference?”
“People in Bedlam are certified insane.”
As he began to eat, he stole glances at the paper. A sketch artist and a tourist from Iowa, both dead. A teenage girl in a limo killed when a cab collided with it near the shooting. More injuries from traffic accidents. A child almost trampled to death on the sidewalk.
Repetto felt an anger growing in him that supplanted his appetite.
It didn’t help when his cell phone chirped.
He dug the phone from the pocket of his jacket folded on the seat beside him. “Repetto,” he said, swallowing a bite of egg.
“It’s Lou Melbourne here.”
“It’s breakfast here.”
“I figured that’s where you’d be. Don’t you usually read the paper while you’re abusing your arteries?”
“I was doing just that. Front page. Times Square last night.”
“The Night Sniper phoned us last night after it happened, Vin. I gave him your answer. He didn’t like it.”
Repetto knew where Melbourne was going with the conversation. “It isn’t my fault those two people were shot last night. It’s entirely the fault of the asshole who squeezed the trigger.”
“Sure. But does
“He’s insane,” Repetto pointed out. “We don’t know how he sees it, and it might not make sense to us if we did know.”
“You’re the expert with serial killers, Vin, but we both know they follow their own weird logic. It’s why they kill. It’s why they get caught.”
Repetto sipped coffee. “I’m not personally responsible for any of that.”
“We agree. But folks in the mayor’s office are in a tizzy. So’s the commissioner, and so’s the chief of department, my boss.”
“You don’t sound in a tizzy.”
“It’s my job not to, but I’m all tizzied up inside. Two people shot to death; then the killer called and said you had a few days to think over my offer-his offer, really-then he’d kill two more. He said for me to tell you their deaths would be on your conscience.”
“Anything else he tell you?”
“He said he had plenty of bullets.”
Repetto said nothing. He sipped his coffee. He didn’t like the way his heartbeat had picked up. The way his blood was racing. The cold rage in the core of him.
“I can hire you as an official consultant and give you two good detectives full-time until the Sniper is nailed,” Melbourne said. “You won’t be officially out of retirement, so you can still draw your pension and keep your promise to Lora.”
“Isn’t that a difference without a distinction?”
“That’s the kind of bullshit we hear every day in court, Vin, and it floats there but not here. You do this thing for us, for the city, and you won’t be bothered again. Travel, go to all the Broadway shows you want, eat well, drink well, rot the rest of your life away happy. That’s fine. But we both know before God, you’re the only one who can do this thing.”
“Lou-”
“Okay, the one who can do it best.”
“Lou-”
“Do this for me as an old friend. Ask Lora again. After last night, things have changed. She’ll see that, I’m sure.”
“Did the chief ask you to call me?”
“The mayor asked.”
Repetto didn’t know whether to believe him. Melbourne could be deceptive, relentless, and remarkably persuasive. That was why he’d been promoted over so many cops with more seniority. Why he’d be chief of department someday, and possibly even commissioner if he didn’t stumble over his own ambition like so many before him. Melbourne wouldn’t lie to Repetto directly, because he was too wily to have to lie, but he could massage the truth until it sighed and surrendered to him.
The bare facts were out there. The Night Sniper had killed twice because he didn’t like Repetto’s answer. If Repetto didn’t change his answer, two more people would die, and soon. Maybe he’d kill more people anyway, but those two, like the two last night, would be Repetto’s responsibility. That was the way the Night Sniper thought.
The way Repetto thought.
“I’ll talk to Lora,” he said.
“Thanks, Vin. You’re gonna prevent a lotta blood being shed.” Repetto had never heard Melbourne sound more sincere. “I’m gonna hang up now before you change your mind.”
And Melbourne was gone.
Repetto killed his cell phone and sat for a moment staring at it.
He took his time with his coffee, reading the rest of the paper casually, until he got to page two of the front section and his name jumped out at him. Someone had leaked the reason why the Night Sniper had claimed his last two victims, and what he wanted. There it was in the
He wanted Repetto.
6
Repetto wanted a piece of cake. He hadn’t realized it had been so long since lunch, and he and Lora had cabbed to the Upper West Side where their daughter, Amelia, had an apartment that she subleased so cheap she didn’t mind taking the subway five or six days a week down to NYU, where she was a senior in prelaw.
Amelia was a slender girl with her mother’s fine features, luminous smile, and thick blond hair. She was proud of her golden hair and wore it combed back and in a long braid that hung to her waist. Today she was twenty-one, and celebrating with her family and best friends. Besides Repetto and Lora, there were Mar, older and grayer than when she and her partner Mel had healed and raised a teenage Repetto; Dal; and a girl named Peggy that Amelia knew from college. A small group, but close.
“We’re going to sing,” Dal said, after Lora had finished lighting the candles on a cake brought by Mar.
Amelia shot her great smile and shook her head, but the singing had already begun.
Repetto had a voice like a cracked foghorn, so he kept his volume down. He didn’t like the way Peggy was looking at Dal, who seemed to be paying no attention to her. Good. Maybe someday Dal and Amelia would see each other differently. Less like brother and sister. So Repetto and Lora hoped. But some things you couldn’t force. Repetto told himself to grow up at his late age. If Dal happened to prefer somebody like Peggy, who was a beautiful young brunette, then so be it. Some things were beyond a father’s control.
“What are you thinking, Dad?”
Repetto realized “Happy Birthday” was over. “Thinking you should make a wish.”
Amelia did, closing her eyes briefly, then pursing her lips and emitting two gusts of breath before all twenty- one candles were extinguished. Lora and Repetto exchanged a look, knowing they were both making their own wish. Mar saw them, grinned, and shook her head. Dal didn’t notice. Peggy appeared momentarily mystified.
“So what was the wish?” Dal asked.
“That she’d make it through law school,” Peggy said, giving Amelia’s long braid a playful tug.
While everyone was laughing, Mar made her way over to Repetto. She was in her eighties now, whipcord lean and wizened, but with carefully permed white hair and alert brown eyes. She looked like one of those people
